Improvement in water-wheels



UNITED STATES PATENT EEICE.

ELIAS DoHNEE, or LANcAs'rEE, AND A. M. BEUGKAET, oE BEUNNEES- VILLE,PENNSYLVANIA.

IMPROVEMENT IN WATER-WH EELS.

Specication forming part of Letters Patent No. 37,337, dated January 6,1863.

.To all whom it may concern:

Be it known thatwe,ELIAsDoHNER, of the city and county of Lancaster andState of Pennsylvania, and A. M. BRUcKAR'r, of Brunnersville, in thesame county and State, have invented a new and useful Improvement inWater-Wheels; and we do hereby declare the following to be a full andexact description of the same, reference being had to the rangement ofbuckets, which will avail more fully the percussive and gravitatingforce of the water and permit its free discharge.

To enable others skilled in the art to which our invention appertains tofully understand and use the same, we will proceed to describe itsconstruction and operation. y

A represents a conical hub, and B a conical rim concentric therewith,connected by spiral buckets C D, of unequal length, disposedallternately, as shown-in Fig.l. AThe hub A and rim B have each the formof the frustum of a cone or conoid, converging upward. rlhe form of thebuckets is such 'as to adapt them to receive and avail the centrifugalas the percussive and gravitatin g force of the water, as will behereinafter explained.

E is the eye, within which the shaft is keyed in customary manner. v

The casin g surroundin g the wheel, and within which it turns, may be ofcommon construction, and therefore does not require specificdescription.

The black arrows indicate the course of the water through the wheel. Thered arrows Show the direction in which the wh eel revol ves.

The operation is as follows: The water, entering from beneath in thedirection indicated by the black arrows in Fig. l, impinges forciblyagainst the buckets D and against the lower ends of the buckets C, bywhich it is deiiected upward and inward, its continued upward pressure,produced by the gravity of the descending column, being exerted byreaction against the oblique upper ends of the long buckets C.. By thesemeans the full power of the water is used in the most advantageousmanner until it has passed completely through the wheel and beyond thereach ofthe pressure of the descending column, after which it ows awaywith entire freedom without any disadvantageous reaction.

From the above description it will be apparent that the position of thebuckets on the lower side of the wheel is such as to avail to thefullest extent the peroussive force of the water, while at the upperside, where the vertical space between the buckets is necessarily lessby reason of their greater Obliquity, the absence of the intermediatebuckets, D, affords space sufficient to admit of a free andunobstructeddischarge. It will Ialso be observed that by reason ofthe upperconvergence of the hub and riin and the depression of the outer edges ofthe buckets the centrifugal force of the water is made use of andprevented from obstructing the motion.

Having thus described our invention, what we claim as new therein, anddesire to secure b v Letters Patent, is

The combination of the short intermediate l buckets, D7 with the buckets(l, hub A, and rim B, all constructed and arranged in the manner and forthe objects set forth.

ELIAS DOHNER. A. M. BRUGKART.

Witnesses:

G. SHAEENER, JOHN SHELLY.

